


Collected HSWC Bonus Round Fills

by Innsmouth



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/F, Multi, Red Romance, additional tags at beginning of each fill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:56:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innsmouth/pseuds/Innsmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fills I ended up completing for the bonus rounds of this year's HSWC. Content warnings are posted at the beginning of each fill.</p><p><i>Implacable (Redglare<3<Condesce, M)</i><br/>After your hanging, life is everything you hoped it wouldn't be.</p><p><i>Women and Children First (Jack<3<Rose, T)</i><br/>For a well-bred lady, she's one hell of a pain in the ass.</p><p><i>Maiden Fair (Kanaya<3Rose, T)</i><br/>Between her lover and her mistress, salvation has never seemed farther out of reach.</p><p><i>Mirror (Rose<3<Vriska, Kanaya<3Rose, T)</i><br/>You may match her in missing pieces, but she cannot match you in strength of will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Implacable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Implacable (Redglare <3<Condesce, M)_  
> After your hanging, life is everything you hoped it wouldn't be.
> 
> [Warnings for character death and descriptions of strangulation and decapitation.]

You can’t speak. The noose destroyed your windpipe, crushing cartilage as it tightened round your neck. At most, you can manage a bubbling hiss, like water turning to steam.  _Devastating_  is the word you would choose for your loss; you prided yourself on your oration in the courtblock, and now you’re incapable of giving voice to even the simplest of sentences. The irony is not lost on you. In the stray moments in between bursts of buzzing-static  _obey-submit-consume,_  you wonder if it was a conscious effort on Her Imperious Condescension’s part to deny you the facet of yourself that you valued most highly.

Perhaps it amuses her, to see one who defied her reduced to a shambling shadow of her former self, the prodigy stripped of her gifts. You remember her smile upon your awakening, barracuda teeth bared in vicious joy, and decide that it must. However sludgy your mind and slow your body, you are still capable of drawing logical conclusions. That much of you is left. You hold tight to it in your stray moments of independent thought; sometimes you think of your claws scrabbling on the slick surface of sentience as you fight not to drown in a sea of enforced obedience. Most of the time your head is under the surface.

The drowning metaphor is apt, you think, given how you died; unlike you, Mindfang was inexperienced in the ways of a proper execution. The drop was too short when she hanged you, and you strangled in the noose while the mob howled. Oxygen deprivation wreaks havoc on the brain, choking axons and making neurons wink out like swatted fireflies. It is not the way you would have chosen to die.

At least, you’re reasonably certain you died. It’s hard to know anymore. When you furrow your brow to think about it, pain shoots behind your eyes like a nailgun and your mind fills with that same insistent chorus of commands. Perhaps she brought you back (you’ve heard the stories), or perhaps not. Ultimately it’s of no consequence; your new career demands most of your attention, loath as you are to admit it.

The Cruelest Bar has no use for heretics, nor does Alternian society at large. You are a walking blasphemy, a relic of a dead faith, and they want nothing to do with an aberration such as you. So you serve where the Condesce has directed you to serve, do what she compels you to do; you have no choice in the matter. 

It would probably be better if you had stayed dead. Better that than to serve as an example of the Empress’ twisted mercy.

The axe she gave you feels wrong in your hands. Your cane was swift and lethal. This is a cumbersome weapon, heavy in your grip, but a sword-cane is a weapon of the privileged, the symbol of a legislacerator, and you are no longer either of those things. Executions do not demand finesse, no matter their import, and neither do those who commit them. Still, you feel as though you will never be accustomed to the inorexable weight of the axe when you bring it down.

And bring it down you will, upon the neck of the greenblood on his knees before the block. He was sniveling when the securiterrorizers dragged him out on to the execution grounds, and he hasn’t stopped since. Please, he whines, he has a matesprit, his quadrants are filled, for god’s sake he’s a respected terranger--

You pay him no mind as you let the axe fall. His body spasms, arterial blood spurting olive on to the sand. After a few moments, his corpse goes still at last. You bend down, knot your fingers in his greasy hair, and raise his head up for all to see. The crowd roars its approval.

Behind you, slouched upon her throne like a lazy wiggler, the Condesce applauds. You turn to present the fruits of your labor, and she smiles.

“Executor,” she calls, “c’mere.”

You drop the head and stumble over, dragging your axe and tripping over your own feet as you scuff your way over the sand; none of your prior wiry grace remains to haunt you. She beckons you closer with a pink-painted claw as you come to a clumsy halt before her. “Kneel.”

You oblige her, knee thudding into the dust as your gaze comes to rest on your boot. The first thing she ordered her lackeys to do when you awoke was to strip you of your uniform, as you were no longer worthy of it. Instead of teal and scarlet, you wear black. More suited to your station, she says.

Her claws prick your chin as she tilts your head up to meet her gaze. You are so close; you think of what she has done to your society, to your messiah, to  _you_ , and you could end it here if you could stand and swing--

A blaze of static fills your brain, and you stay where you are, wordless and submissive. The Condesce’s smile widens a fraction; she knows. 

What you wouldn’t give to be able to part her grinning head from her shoulders.

“Nice work, guppy,” she purrs. “You’re gonna go reel far.”

You say nothing, silent as the dead.


	2. Women and Children First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Women and Children First (Jack <3<Rose, T)_  
> For a well-bred lady, she's one hell of a pain in the ass.
> 
> Jack and Rose and the sinking of the _Titanic_ , 1912.

He hits the water like a dropped hammer and comes up gasping, snorting gouts of acid-chill seawater. It stings his throat and clings to his palate like smoke, lingering on his tongue with the overpowering tang of salt. For a moment he is disoriented, lost in adrenaline and overwhelming cold, then a rumbling groan echoes over the water and he looks up to find the mortally wounded liner towering stern-up above him like some maimed colossus, the crumpled steel streaking down its side shocking as exposed bone.  
  
A few hesitant, clumsy strokes bear him slowly away, then a few more. He is not a strong swimmer and never has been; anything more complex than the dog-paddle is utterly beyond him. Something bobs above the waves in the near distance, and he blunders towards it one kick at a time, shaking from exertion and the lack of warmth. If he’s lucky enough to survive this debacle by some miracle, knowing his luck he’ll probably lose his feet.  
  
That, Jack thinks, is absolute bullshit. Hypothermia is bullshit. Frostbite is bullshit. This whole goddamn catastrophe is bullshit, the entire goddamn thing. Who the hell ever heard of icebergs in April? Not him.  
  
When he nears it, the object reveals itself to be a door floating on its front, and perched atop it like a queen in exile is the lady from cabin twelve.  
  
Well, fuck. His luck, again.  
  
“Hey,” he calls as he paddles over, hoarse from swallowed saltwater. “Hey, move over. I’m freezin’ my ass off down here. That’s probably going to be a literal statement in a coupla’ minutes.”  
  
She arches a brow. “And why,” she says, frosty as the North Atlantic itself, “should I risk the stability of my current method of flotation for someone who’s done nothing but harass me for the entirety of this ill-fated voyage?”  
  
“I don’t know, out of the goodness of your heart? Jesus, woman, lemme up.”  
  
The accursed woman ( _Lalonde,_ pings his brain, _somebody Lalonde_ ) crosses her ankles with infinite patience and looks down her nose as he clumsily treads water. “Ah, yes. My feminine sensibilities are set thoroughly askew by your deep and profound appeal to my inherent generosity. I’m convinced. Come, join me atop my improvised lifeboat, and I can while away the night swooning over your virile charm.”  
  
“You’re fuckin’—wait, really?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Jack bares his teeth, but the effect is diminished somewhat by a stray wave flooding his nose with water and sending him into a coughing fit. “Come on, you heartless bitch. Let bygones be fuckin’ bygones, willya?”  
  
“While this debris is perfectly capable of supporting my weight, if you were to climb up it would sink. Alas, it seems you’ll just have to find a lifeboat.” The smile she gives him is so exaggeratedly beatific that it makes him want to retch. Or maybe that’s the water he’s swallowed. “Freezing to death is also a viable option, and one that I’d recommend you pursue.”  
  
Snarling, Jack hurls himself forward and seizes the edge of the door; immediately it begins to list. Lalonde wobbles to her feet, water rising to her ankles. “Your lust for survival has swayed me from my previous resolve. Clearly, having us both perish from exposure is the best option. Allow me to lend a hand.”  
  
Momentarily confused by her apparent about-face, he hesitates in heaving himself up.  
  
“Don’t let go, Jack,” she says, as she grinds her bootheel down on his fingers.


	3. Maiden Fair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Maiden Fair (Kanaya <3Rose, T)_  
> Between her lover and her mistress, salvation has never seemed farther out of reach.
> 
> Rose, Kanaya, and the murderous reign of Countess Erszebet Bathory, late 1500s.  
> [Warnings for death and internalized homophobia, I suppose.]

November in Sárvár sees frost scaling on the windows and ice creeping on the ground, and it is the latter that gives Katarina trouble as she wrestles the spade into the cold earth. Leafless trees tower above her, shrouded as mourners in the guttering light of her lantern. Her breath fogs in the night air with every crunch of iron on soil, and her palms burn where they chafe against the shaft of the spade.  
  
Three feet into the dirt, she decides she’s had enough; her fingers are blistering and chill sweat is beading on her back and shoulders from the effort of digging. The shallow hole she’s excavated slopes gently instead of plunging straight down, more a child’s clumsy pit than a proper grave. That’s alright, she supposes. Her less than stellar grave-digging skills are no one’s concern but her own. With slight reluctance, she sets down her spade and prepares to inter the corpse she’s been tasked with disposing of.  
Tonight’s girl is tall and thin like her, but fair-haired like Rózsa; she could be some sister to them both, a combination put carefully together by a curious God.  
  
Katarina would not wish the wounds torn into this latest victim’s body on either of them. _God had no hand in this,_ she thinks as she gazes down at burned and bitten flesh. Her stomach lurches as she grabs the dead girl by the wrists and begins to pull her into the pit, though it is not the first time she has been exposed to such carnage, and it will not be the last.  
  
Countess Báthory’s appetites are hardly secret, yet Katarina knew nothing of them when she entered service at Sárvár Castle. An unfortunate oversight, Rózsa called her obliviousness when Katarina admitted to not knowing. Then again, it does not matter whether she was aware or not; servants are worth little, and their opinions even less.  
  
Her complicity, however, is worth quite a bit.  
  
A rustling in the underbrush startles her into dropping the body; it lands in the hole she’s dug with a dull _whump_ , head lolling to one side. Katarina dives for the spade and seizes it, readying herself to swing at whatever approaches.  
  
“I thought,” says Rózsa dryly from just outside the thin circle of light, “that you might want some help.”  
  
“Oh,” says Katarina, and lowers her spade, feeling rather embarrassed at her attack of nerves. Rózsa picks her way over a tree root and gently pries Katarina’s throbbing fingers from the shaft. “If you don’t mind maintaining your extraordinary vigilance,” she says, “I’m quite capable of filling a hole by myself.”  
   
“Thank you,” says Katarina quietly, and leans forward to kiss her. She finds it absolutely miraculous that Rózsa always kisses her back, if anything done by people of their like could ever be termed miraculous. None need know what they do when no one is looking – a brush of lips against her cheek in a deserted corridor, Rózsa’s hand creeping under her skirt in the small hours of the night – and none of it is to anyone’s detriment. Yet in the eyes of God, they are abominations. Their shared damnation does not strike Katarina as particularly just.  
  
When she considers it, her actions in the name of her employer might well lend itself to that.  
  
Between Rózsa and the Countess, she is firmly damned indeed. That knowledge weighs heavily on her when she is forced to acknowledge her predicament.  
  
She watches the shadows shift on Rózsa’s face as she shovels dirt over the dead girl and tries to think no more about it.


	4. Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Mirror (Rose <3<Vriska, Kanaya<3Rose, T)_  
> You may match her in missing pieces, but she cannot match you in strength of will.
> 
> [Warnings for amputation, eye trauma, and a pretty brutal prosthesis fitting.]

Kanaya tends to you in those first few bloody days, where everything is afire and you want to cry from fatigue and loss. You keep reaching for things with an arm that isn’t there anymore before pain ripples up your stump from your efforts, Kanaya’s neat stitchwork tearing open like a zipper. Inevitably you end up seated at the culinary block table as she sews you back up, indigo welling in beads on your skin with each careful push of the needle.

Your partial blindness is, if anything, worse; you blink, you tear up, you can feel where your eye should be, but all you can see on your right side is darkness. The empty socket taunts you, as do the ropy strings of scar tissue surrounding it. When you probe at them with your fingers, Kanaya gently guides your hand away. Always, you wonder why she bothers. You are cullable now, highblood or not. She gains nothing from keeping you alive.

In a way, you must be supremely pitiable, ruin of a troll as you are. In a heartbeat, you went from Rosell Lalond, FLARPer and aspiring subjugglator, to Rosell Lalond, crippled wreck. That’s probably why Kanaya bothers continuing to care. If that’s the case, then so be it; you’re not in a position to question the strength of her pity for you if you’ve any desire to keep on living. Not if you have any intention of administering some serious retribution unto the one whose missing pieces you now ironically mirror.

FLARPing is absurdly dangerous, you knew that much; the things that happened to your temporary acquaintances served as timely reminders whenever you got too self-assured. You fancied yourself capable enough, but in a game of slaughter the murderer is king, and Vriska Serket outclassed you by a mile. Underestimating her was foolish, and you paid the price with your eye and arm. If your opponent hadn’t been distracted by her would-be kismesis and his rifle, you’d have paid with your life as well.

When you think of her, your fangs grind together and your veins feel as though they’re filled with acid. The sensation is a confusing one, though you can discern your own vicious animosity; you want to kiss her as much as you want to feel your claws tear out her throat. Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable. Hatred is not as beautiful as you were led to believe. 

You know that Kanaya still harbors flushed feelings for the girl you’re now ragingly caliginous for. You don’t know, however, how she would feel about your hungering for revenge on someone who injured you so badly, let alone someone she still has a throbbing red crush on.

Not mentioning your plans would most likely be for the best.

Kanaya runs a clawtip along the edge of your tattered right ear, which flattens in response to her touch as she asks what’s on your thinkpan. 

Nothing, you tell her, except that you don’t particularly enjoy having half your former manual dexterity.

She is silent for a moment, and then says that she thinks she knows someone who can help with that.

It’s three perigees before she takes you to her acquaintance’s hive; you needed the time to heal, and even then Kanaya is on edge for the entire journey. 

Equius Zahhak is a lumbering hulk of muscle with fingers like slabs of meat, but his touch when he unravels your bandages is surprisingly gentle. The air in his dimly-lit hive is cool on the tender new skin of your stump, and you shiver. If Equius notices, he pays it no mind. To serve a highblood would be a noble endeavor, he says, and he would be honored to do so.

The next week and a half is a nightmare of sparks and agony as he crafts and fits your new arm. He insists that anaesthetic would impede your final ability to feel sensation; you respond by screaming until your throat is raw as he welds parts into place through your torn and bloody skin. Equius refrains from acknowledging your pain, constructing the limb piece by piece by piece as you writhe in your restraints. Your right side is a skeletal mass of metal, plates on your shoulder and wires through flesh and bone, and Equius plays you like an instrument as he builds you back into one seamless whole.

Flexing both sets of fingers for the first time in perigees is nothing short of miraculous, and in that moment every second of excruciating pain is worth it. You express your profuse thanks to Equius; flustered, he downplays the impact of his actions. Sweating visibly and mopping himself with an oil-stained towel, he ushers you out of his hive.

You kill a cholerbear on the trip back to Kanaya’s hive, cracking its skull with a blow from your right hand. Stunned and vulnerable, the beast is easily dispatched with a swing of Kanaya’s chainsaw.

You could get used to this.

Tracking your quarry is a simple affair, as Vriska has never been one for subtlety; like her mannerisms, her patterns of movement are grandiose and blatant, as if she’s announcing to the world what she plans to do. Such obvious gestures have never sat well with you. They’re predictable. You do not like to be predictable, if you can help it. Vriska apparently can’t. Typical.

The night falls when she is within walking distance of your hive, journeying overland to her chosen FLARPing grounds for yet another rendezvous with Ampora. You leave at dusk without telling Kanaya; your matesprit is dozing, worn out from battling wights and other things that go bump in the day. Her residual feelings for Vriska will simply prove an obstruction. She doesn’t need to know.

When you find her, Vriska is atop a hill, surveying her domain like a conquering lord. The wind and soft grass are enough that you’re able to approach unnoticed, creeping up from behind. You stand there for a moment you can ill afford, observing your adversary – tall, lanky, hungry-looking in a way that the ambitious are – and you decide that no, you can’t resist a bit of showmanship.

You lay your left hand on her shoulder, as though you’re greeting an old friend. 

Hail, Marquise, you say, and when she turns you slam your steely new fist into her face.


End file.
